2-Year-Old Kid Was Kidnapped and Miraculously Reunited With His Family After 32 Years

Mao Yin was reported missing when he was just two years old. And his parents tried out everything to find and reunite with him. When the toddler was abducted, his father was almost the same age his son is today. Yet, he and his wife never lost hope to finally meet and hug hard their beloved kid and never leave him again.

It all happened in a split second.

Li Jingzhi gave birth to her son in 1986. Just two years later, his father, Mao Zhenjing, was bringing him home from nursery. The boy asked for a drink of water, so they stopped right at the entrance of a hotel. Mao looked away, just briefly trying to cool down some hot water. Yet, it was enough for someone to take the boy away.

His mother had to dedicate all her life to search her son.

The family searched everywhere in and around their province, putting up many posters but all in vain. Then Li quit her job and started to search for her son in all the other regions. She handed out about 100 thousand flyers in more than ten provinces and municipalities but with no success.

Over the years, the poor mother appeared on numerous TV shows and appealed for help. She followed 300 leads, but no match was found. At one point, she even thought they had found the boy, but later it turned out it was a false dawn.

The boy was found through DNA-matching technology.

In April 2020, police received a tip about a man in southwest China — about 1,000 km (620 miles) from where the kid was kidnapped — who had adopted a baby years earlier. Police found the adoptee and conducted a DNA test to determine if the boy was related to Mao Zhenjing and Li Jingzhi. The test came back positive.

Mao had some doubts about his foster parents for a long time.

The missing boy, Mao Yin, had been renamed Gu Ningning. He was sold as a boy to a childless couple for 6,000 yuan (£690, $840). And though authorities have not released any information about the stepparents, Mao told much about them in different interviews after his reunion with the natural parents.

He said he always felt like a stranger to his stepfather, just a said familiar stranger. If a kid is sick or something troubles him, parents care about it and try to help. Nothing like that ever happened in his stepfamily.

As of the reunion, Mao wasn’t sure about his future. He didn’t know the whole story, so he didn’t want to meet his birth parents at first. He thought they wouldn’t want him now after so many years and was constantly asking where they all were before, why didn’t they find him much earlier.

Though Mao still had doubts about his foster parents. They assured him they were his birth parents, but, starting in middle school, Mao always felt something was wrong. So when the police came to him, his suspicions were confirmed, and hopefully, later, he agreed to meet his real mom and dad.

Mao had to have some time to adjust to his ’new’ family at first.

For Li, this even became the best gift she had ever got. And in time, it became for Mao as well. At first, he felt strange around his mom. But the feeling disappeared soon, and he fully accepted her as his only mother on Earth.

All these years, Li kept the kid’s tricycle as a memory of her son.

Li bought a tricycle for their boy two months before he was kidnapped. She kept it ever since, looking at it every time she thought about her son and trying to remember how he looked riding it. The tricycle is now 30 years old.

Li showed it to Mao and asked jokingly whether he could ride it today. Mao said his son probably could. The thing became a family heirloom.

Li helped to find 29 kidnapped kids.

Like any other woman, Li Jingzhi never imagined that she would end up looking for her son for 32 years. The biggest regret for her is losing the chance to raise her child, experience mother-son bonding, and educate and protect him. All these things were ripped from her.

Yet, she never lost hope and always helped other parents who lost their children. They formed powerful bonds like relatives and tried to go down this road together until they finally reunited with their kids. Over the years, Li has helped 29 kidnapped children find their birth parents while her son was still missing. And now, she intends to keep working with the group.

The bond between a mother and her child is one of the most powerful connections in the world. And this story is another proof of how hope and a strong spirit help people to find their loved ones no matter how long ago they missed.